FOR decades college lecturer Eddie Naylor has been riding high.

FOR decades college lecturer Eddie Naylor has been riding high.

But his peddling has come to a disappointing stop today after his trusty bicycle which he has owned for more than 40 years was stolen by thieves.

Mr Naylor, 59, of Ipswich, bought the Carlton racing bike when he was a 17-year-old apprentice carpenter and joiner in Southend.

Now a lecturer in computing at Suffolk New College he has used the bike to get himself to work almost every day since then.

He also uses it for cycling tours of the East Anglian countryside.

He said: “I was shocked - I locked it up in the place where I always leave it, with a D-lock and a cable lock, so I thought it was secure.

“I have had the bike a long time and I have always looked after it.

“Every part of it has been replaced except the frame, and I always leave it looking a bit scruffy so it doesn't tempt people.

“But that was obviously not enough.”

The bike has a mid-blue coloured frame, which is numbered 58495.

Mr Naylor, of Temple Road, said: “I have had the bike for a long time and it is really a shame that I have had it stolen now.

“It has served me well over the years and I have had a lot of use out of it.”

It was stolen from the bicycle sheds at Suffolk College between 8am and 6.30pm on Thursday, December 6.

Anyone who saw anything suspicious or has any information about the theft can pass it on to Suffolk police by calling 01473 613500.

n Have you had a cherished possession stolen? Write to Your Letters, Evening Star, 30 Lower Brook Street, Ipswich IP4 1AN or e-mail eveningstarletters@eveningstar.co.uk

IN the 40 years Eddie Naylor has been riding his bike to work he has travelled around 42,000 miles - around the same distance as if he had cycled around the world and then on to the moon.

America's involvement in the Vietnam War began the year he brought the bicycle - the same year Britain's Great War leader Winston Churchill died.

By the time of the first moon landing in 1969 he had probably already fixed a few punctures and ridden hundreds of miles travelling from his home to the workshop where he worked as a carpenter and joiner.

In 1977, he began teacher training in Roehampton and would make the 40-mile journey there and back from his home in Rayleigh, Essex, once a week.

He moved with his wife, Audrey to Ipswich in 1981 and began teaching at Suffolk College, cycling two miles each way every day between his digs in the east of the town and the college.

And when the young couple got their first home together a few years later, in Temple Road, he continued cycling about the same distance every day.